Archangel's Enigma

  The heat of it sizzled through the snow and ice as if it was nothing. It took Jason time only because he was being careful not to accidentally damage what lay beneath, but he drilled a tunnel to an incredible depth within the next ten minutes.

  "Wait," Naasir said and took off his pack. "I'm going to go down, see if it's far enough." As he spoke, he took a small package from the pack and put it in a pocket of his snow jacket.

  "If it is," Jason said, his eyes on the hole, "come back up enough to signal me so I know you haven't been buried in snow down there."

  Making the promise, Naasir didn't jump down into the hole but climbed down, using his claws to get a good grip. If Jason had drilled too far, he would feel the door as he went down. As it was, it was still a few feet below, but he decided to dig that out with his hands, pressing the extra snow to the sides of Jason's tunnel.

  Then he climbed back up so he could yell to Jason. "Throw down the ax in my pack! I need to hack through the ice in front of the door."

  Finding the ax, Jason told him to hug the wall before the black-winged angel dropped the tool into the snow tunnel.

  Naasir picked it up and began to hack away the snow and ice that blocked him from the door on the other side. It took time, sweat rolling down his back under the layers of warm clothing. Even then, the door wouldn't open, it was frozen so hard. He used the ax again to chip at the ice, but he was careful not to destroy the seal.

  When he left, he'd close it up again.

  Because the reason Alexander had submerged rather than destroy this place was because it was a burial ground. Naasir's brethren, who he'd never met in life, wouldn't mind him coming in to take something. He was one of them. But no one else was welcome here, and he would permit no one to defile it.

  A black feather drifted down.

  Realizing Jason had to be growing concerned, he climbed back up so he could wave at the spymaster. Then he dropped down once more and, after a little more careful chipping, twisted the handle of the door and pushed as hard as he could. A creaking groan sounded. He slammed his shoulder against the door. Once, twice . . . and he was falling into the frigid place where he'd been born and where so many had died.

  "It's only Naasir," he said to the ones who slept here in the stone coffins Osiris had created one by one around a small home, until they became the walls and the floor of a large stronghold. Each square block held a twisted child who was two, or broken bodies who were still one.

  "I've come for a book," he said, able to sense them all around, curious and excited that he'd come. "It's red with a golden design on the front, and it has a lock stamped with the shape of a griffin. That's a kind of half bird, half lion." His breath frosted the air as he spoke, his claws having sliced out of his boots to grip at the ice that covered all surfaces.

  Icicles dripped from the ceilings. Stalagmites grew from the floor.

  It was a cold, desolate place, but Naasir felt no sense of danger or unease. Only his brethren lived here now. Alexander had incinerated Osiris and taken his ashes far from here before the Ancient buried this place. "I brought you something." Reaching inside his pocket, he pulled out a toy that made music and kept it in his hand as he walked down the iced-over stairs to the lower level.

  There, in the laboratory, he placed his gift on the large table where, according to the notes Raphael had taken and held in trust until Naasir was ready to read them, Osiris had cut up countless misshapen and twisted bodies, many while they were still alive. "I have a mate," he told the others, thinking not of the evil things that had happened here, but of how it had been reclaimed. "The book is for her. She's a scholar."

  A stalactite fell from the ceiling in the dim depths of the laboratory. Taking the cue, he went to the spot and discovered that everything was encased in ice. Going back upstairs, he found his ax and returned. He was careful as he chipped here, too.

  The book lay on the floor in a block of ice.

  Cutting through until he could pick it up, but while it still had a protective coat of ice, he held it in his gloved hands. "Thank you," he said to his friends. "One day, I'll bring my mate here. She has wings, but she's brave and she'll come down." He didn't think Andromeda would find it strange that he knew his friends were still here, happily playing among themselves--she understood him, knew that his mind wasn't the same as hers.

  Another stalactite fell in a tinkling symphony.

  Smiling, he turned and walked out. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the music start to play behind him and knew his toy was welcome. Tucking the iced-over book in his jacket, he closed the door and made sure the seal was tight. Then he spent time packing snow all around it.

  Climbing to the surface, he said, "We have to fill the hole back up again. No one can know what lies here." His brethren had earned their peace.

  "The falling snow will do that itself, but we can help it along."

  Together, the two of them began to manually fill the hole using the extendable shovels Naasir had in his pack. Meanwhile, the icy book began to melt against Naasir's body heat. Realizing it might get damaged, he put it on top of the pack so it would remain cold.

  Night fell and still they shoveled.

  Even after the hole was no longer visible, they stayed, waiting to make sure they'd left behind no trace of their visit. By the time dawn whispered softly over the landscape, there was no sign anyone had ever been here but for Naasir's footprints as he walked away from the site. Those were quickly filled in by the fresh snow that fell in a gentle rain from the sky.

  His friends were safe again.

  And he had the Grimoire.

  *

  Andromeda didn't know how she'd survived the past five days. Her parents were exactly as she'd left them, their excesses changed only in the specifics. Lailah and Cato still indulged in vicious sexual torture with "willing" playmates who may simply have been too scared to protest, and every so often, they meted out violence just because it was a "fun" way to break the ennui that colored their every action.

  Even today, a hapless young angel screamed in her mother's quarters while her father sat in the great living area dressed only in pants of red silk while two naked vampires danced for him. He'd invited her to sit with him, watch the show--Cato was so jaded that he'd forgotten what it was to be a father.

  Andromeda had been barely beyond a toddler the first time she'd seen her father having sex with a woman not her mother. He'd been strangling the whipped and bleeding woman at the time. Shocked, she'd cried. That day, her father had stopped and carried her out of the room. He hadn't bothered the times afterward, and she'd learned not to come unannounced into any room in the stronghold.

  As for Lailah, Andromeda's mother had met her on arrival, and told her she'd placed a special triptych in Andromeda's room. Immediately nauseous, Andromeda had hoped she was wrong. She wasn't. She'd found three naked men waiting in her bed.

  An angel. A vampire. A mortal.

  A triptych. Her mother's little joke.

  Andromeda had ordered the three out on the point of a blade.

  This noon, the sixth since her arrival and the seventh since she'd left the Refuge, she fisted her hands, her spine rigid at the idea of another five hundred years of an existence mired in bone-numbing fear, brutal violence, and empty indulgence. Unlike her parents, her grandfather would not accept defiance. And as Andromeda wouldn't mete out torture on his orders, he'd turn the violence on her, brutalize her until she was nothing but an empty doll.

  "Let it go, Andi." She forced her fists to open, shoved aside her frustration and anger, and smiled, grimly determined not to allow the dark future to steal this day from her. "Today, you're Andi, and today, you'll be happy."

  Picking up the basket of food she'd prepared, a picnic blanket already over her arm, she exited into the back courtyard and rose into the sky.

  Her lungs expanded, clean air rushing into her body.

  47

  Not long afterward, she sat under the dusky, midday sun on a picnic blan
ket she'd spread under the distinctive umbrella-shaped canopy of a tree that had as many names as Africa had languages. Aqba, nyoswa, samor, umbrella thorn acacia . . . the name or the dialect didn't matter. What mattered was that these trees provided welcome shade on the rolling grasslands of the savanna.

  From her position, she could see the herons fly over the old watering hole, their wings flashes of white. Now that the reeds around the water were no longer regularly trampled under the ponderous feet of elephants, they grew lush and green when, elsewhere, the savanna was the golden green color of a season when the rains had come.

  Much as Andromeda liked the herons and the lush foliage around the watering hole, she missed the elephants. There was something so very wise and steady about the magnificent creatures. And the way they cared for their young? As a babe herself, she'd been so envious of those awkward elephant babies who'd splashed in the water, certain their parents would protect them from the lions who liked to prowl around here.

  But the elephants had moved on for reasons of their own, and though Andromeda knew their new favorite place, she didn't go there. She didn't want to inadvertently betray them to her parents' guests. She'd done that once, accidentally shown a group of guests where the black rhino walked.

  The three monsters had butchered two of the majestic creatures in front of her as she screamed and begged and tried to stop them. They'd done it for fun.

  For fun.

  That horrific day marked the only time she had ever been proud of her parents. Livid at discovering the slaughter, Lailah and Cato had meted out near-lethal punishments on the spot. Andromeda's parents might torture and mutilate mortals and immortals without compunction, but they did not allow the abuse or senseless killing of animals.

  Andromeda had asked once, why protect one and not the other? Her mother's answer had been simple: Animals have no choice in whether or not to play the game.

  Do all your playmates? Andromeda had dared ask.

  Enough to not be innocent as an animal is innocent.

  As a result of their stance, Lailah and Cato's territory teemed with wildlife, was considered one of the most rich and diverse places on the continent when it came to fauna.

  Yet despite the fact the aftermath of the rhino slaughter was well known to all who came here, Andromeda didn't take risks when it came to the animals. The herons could fly away if anyone came here, and they weren't usually targets in any case.

  Where was Naasir?

  She stood and walked up the slight rise behind the tree for the tenth time. It gave her an uninterrupted view of the savanna in every direction, but she saw no familiar feline stride, no glint of glittering silver.

  Refusing to give up, she returned to the picnic blanket and checked the food she'd prepared by hand and with all of the love in her heart. She'd packed the meat in ice to protect it from the heat, then placed it in an insulated container, but it wouldn't last more than two hours, given the warm temperature. She loved that warmth against her skin, loved the dusty scents in the air, loved hearing the far-off roar of a lion, had missed it all desperately when she was in the Refuge.

  An hour later and the herons had flown away, leaving her with only the grasses for company. Even the light wind had fallen, the entire world in stasis. When she walked up the rise again, all was emptiness. "Naasir!" she yelled out to the mocking landscape. "If you don't get here soon, I'll eat all the meat!"

  "Liar."

  Heart slamming into her rib cage, she swiveled so fast on her heel that she almost unbalanced. And there he was, his breath harsh and his skin hot, his hair tumbled from the run. She jumped into his arms, those arms wide open for her. Grabbing her under her wings, as if they'd done this a million times before and he knew exactly how to hold her, he lifted her off her feet and spun her around.

  Laughing and crying, she locked her arms around him. "You're late," she accused when he stopped the spin. "I've been waiting forever."

  Cuddling her close, he rubbed his cheek against hers. "I'm hungry."

  She pretended to punch his shoulder, but when he put her on her feet, tugged him to the picnic blanket . . . and there, in the middle of the tartan was a book that wasn't supposed to exist. Lips parting on a gasp, she fell on her knees. She reached for the book, snatched back her hand before her fingers could graze the gold-etched red leather.

  The gold outlined the image of a fierce winged creature with fiery breath.

  "You can touch it," Naasir said, sprawling on his side on the blanket. "I asked Jessamy what to do to thaw it safely."

  "Thaw it?"

  Naasir didn't answer. He'd flipped open the insulated container and found the seasoned meat. Grinning, he popped a cube into his mouth . . . and his chest rumbled in pleasure, eyes heavy lidded. "Who made this?"

  She bit down on her lower lip. "Do you like it?"

  "Yes. I hope you bought a lot." He ate several more cubes.

  Forgetting the Grimoire for a second, she beamed. "I made it. I used special spices you can only order from a shop in Marrakech--I had the package flown down so it'd arrive in time."

  His eyes lit up, but his next words were a growl. "Open the book so you can be sure it's your stupid Grimoire."

  Laughing at the way he always referred to the Star Grimoire, she picked it up with utmost care. The leather was in near-flawless condition, only a little creased on the spine. "How can this be so old and so perfect?"

  "It was hidden away," Naasir said. "Maybe Osiris found it in the ice when he built the house that became his stronghold." A shrug. "Later, it returned to the ice."

  "Will you tell me about your becoming?" Under a warm African sun where no darkness could linger.

  He growled and, reaching over, grabbed the Grimoire. Undoing the lock with a rough quickness that made her squeak, he thrust it at her. "Is this it?"

  Realizing he wasn't going to tell her anything until she'd confirmed whether or not this was in fact the Grimoire, she took it from him and, sitting cross-legged on the picnic blanket, opened it with care. The text flowed like water across the page, interrupted only by two squares of delicately detailed illustrations.

  Gold and silver and green and red, the colors were brilliant, as if the lines had been drawn yesterday. The black ink of the writing was as dark. Turning the page, she found a full-page drawing of a griffin. The mythical creature's wings were gloriously arched, its body that of a lion and its eyes a hypnotic obsidian. Running her fingers carefully over the image, she felt her throat thicken.

  "This is a jewel," she whispered to Naasir. "One of the Seven Lost Angelic Treasures." She rubbed away the tears rolling down her cheeks before the salt water could fall and damage the page.

  Shifting to sit behind her so he could look over her shoulder, Naasir wrapped one strong arm around her waist. "Can you read the writing?"

  "Yes. It's an ancient angelic tongue." Though angels were immortals, their languages had nonetheless drifted over the eons. "If I read it aloud, you'd understand large parts of it. It's just the writing of it that's changed so significantly."

  Naasir's hair brushed her cheek as he leaned forward to turn the page, his body warm and strong around her. "So it's the book from your vow?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." Tugging the Grimoire out of her hands, he dropped it on the far side of the picnic blanket. When she turned to ask why he'd done that, he slammed his mouth against hers, his hand thrusting into her hair.

  The shock of contact was blinding. Then came the hot, hard punch of violent pleasure. It hurt, she'd been needing him for so long. Moaning, she twisted in his embrace so that she could wrap her arms around his neck. He had other ideas.

  A second later, she was on her back on the blanket, Naasir over her.

  Weaving his hands through her own, he pinned them to either side of her head. His hair--one of her feathers still in place--fell around his face as he dipped his head toward her, his eyes silver bright. Mercy but he was beautiful, she thought and then his mouth was devouring her
s, and her heart, it was thumping like a brutal hammer inside her chest.

  She devoured him as he devoured her, her tongue licking against his, her teeth grazing his lips. He bit. Of course he bit. And that was okay, because this was Naasir and he was hers for this moment, this instant, this day.

  He lowered his full weight on her, nudging apart her legs and grinding his erect cock against the swollen folds between her thighs. Inner muscles spasming as a ragged cry was ripped from her throat, she wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked against him. Growling into her mouth, he released one of her hands, reached down between them.

  Claws grazed her skin.

  She jerked as she felt her pants tear. He didn't stop there--he ripped and tore until there were only a few shreds hanging by her boots. Her panties disappeared as quickly and then his no-longer-clawed fingers were stroking her with a slick, wet intimacy that made her want to beg and to take and to give all at once. Shuddering, her breasts aching and her nipples painfully sensitive, she pushed up his T-shirt and, when he didn't cooperate, nipped hard at his jaw.

  That got her a growl and a silver-eyed glance through lashes as beautiful.

  "Take this off," she ordered.

  He thrust a finger inside her instead.

  Her spine arched as her mouth fell open on a silent scream, her breath lost and her body clenching down hard on the small, possessive invasion.

  Naasir's lips brushed her throat.

  She jerked at the scrape of fangs, but he didn't bite, every muscle in his body so tense it was as if he'd snap. Her mind was fuzzy but she knew instinctively what was wrong. Pushing her free hand into his hair to hold him to her, she gasped in enough air to speak. "Yes. You can feed from me. Take me."

  Tension dissipating into molten heat, he scraped his fangs over her needy flesh again and, withdrawing his finger from her body to her moan and the carnal, liquid sound of her readiness, moved his hand to the fly of his jeans . . . and a second later, the rigid length of him was demanding heat against her. Shoving up her thigh until her knee pressed into her breast, he began to push into her.

  She'd expected him to thrust, had been prepared for inevitable discomfort, but he nuzzled and kissed at her as he went slowly. "You're very tight, mate."